Iron Age and Roman Settlement and a Bronze Age Ring-Ditch at Main Road, Earls Barton, Northamptonshire

Albion Archaeology’s excavations in 2016 at Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, focused on an Iron Age and Roman settlement. This was not the earliest use of the site, however: excavation of a nearby ring-ditch monument dated it to the early Bronze Age, with four associated cremation burials.

The Iron Age settlement began in the 1st of 2nd century BC, with both enclosed and unenclosed elements. it included a Wootton Hilly-style enclosure, whose inhabitants would have had the power to command significant resources and may have been members of the elite. This was incorporated into a series of linked enclosures when the settlement’s layout was revised in the early 1st century AD.

Widespread Roman domestic activity was evident when the settlement was reconfigured again in the 2nd century AD, with buildings and wells constructed of limestone and ironstone. The presence of up to six drying ovens also points to cereal production on a significant scale. Coin evidence suggests that the settlement largely fell out of use after the mid-4th century.

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